


ses ailes d'eau salée.

by winterblade



Category: Ouran High School Host Club - All Media Types
Genre: ...sour, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Families of Choice, Family Issues, Found Family, Gang Violence, Gangs, Multi, Overprotective Kyouya, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Tamaki Protection Squad, Toxic Relationships, What-If, actually the whole club is overprotective, also i needed tamaki angst, depends on where this goes, i blame the granny, its her fault everything went, there might be slight KyoTama, to heal he must first suffer, to write french gangster tamaki, yo this is legit an excuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-11-12 08:39:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11158248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterblade/pseuds/winterblade
Summary: In a world where Suoh Tamaki had never met his father, a what-could’ve-been is born. Here is a world where instead of being drawn in by his smile, what brings them together is this: a boy with lonely eyes, a heart of gold that has long lost its glow, and the desire to erase the grief written into his very soul.





	ses ailes d'eau salée.

**Author's Note:**

> "The ones I loved fly as birds in the open sky above me. Soaring, weaving, calling to me to join them. I want so badly to follow them, but the seawater saturates my wings, making it impossible to lift them." ~ Suzanne Collins

René had never known his father.

For as long as he could remember, it had always been just him and maman.

He had one, of course. Even at the age of 5 years old, he was smart enough to know that it took two to have a child. Why else would all his classmates have two parents, after all?

He asked maman where his papa was, once. She had frozen, her breath hitched. Her eyes clouded over, and the next thing he knew, there were tears streaming down her pale and dainty cheeks and she was suddenly kneeling, holding him close. His shoulder was damp. In his shock, he faintly registered the desperate sobbing, _“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, mon fils, je suis desolée.”_

He never brought it up again.

He knows that something must have happened. Something must have happened to make his father leave. He also knew that his mother still thought of him, whoever he was, where ever he was. He would sometimes see her, staring at the sunrise with a faraway gaze, as if she were lost in a daydream or a future that never was. She would always be holding some kind of paper of some kind — a letter? — close to her heart.

Whenever that happened, he would often walk up and tug at her skirt. He would ask her to show him the piano again. She would snap out of her trance. She would put the letter away.

She would smile again, when he did it, and so he did it whenever he could.

He would do anything if it meant getting rid of the sadness in her eyes, if only for a little while.

(He did his best to pretend that it never existed, that the melancholy that clouded her beautiful eyes — violet, just like his — was gone. The sorrow stained his mother’s delicate portrait; what should’ve been bright and happy and cheery was left dull, lifeless, and weeping for a man who didn’t deserve her.)

Even if he didn’t know him, René didn’t hate him. How could he, when his maman still loved him so much?

It would’ve been so easy to hate him, he knew. Some days, he tried. In the end, he just couldn’t find it in him to hate someone he didn’t even know.

(But sometimes. Sometimes, there was that twinge in his chest. Sometimes, he couldn’t help but feel the tiny flames of resentment, stirring ever so slightly. It just wasn’t fair that maman had to suffer like this. On his more vindictive days, he bitterly wishes his “papa” suffers, too.)

René had never known his father.

But.

That was okay with him.

He didn’t need one.

He didn’t want one.

All he wanted was to be with his mother. 

With his mother, he was content. 

With his mother, he was happy.

(Besides, what’s the point in missing something you’ll never have?)

~

René’s father was Japanese.

He didn’t know his name yet, though, but René knew that his father hailed from the land of the rising sun.

He’d figured as much, after discovering the stash of letters hidden at the back of his mother’s closet.

She worked as a piano instructor and also as a private tutor. She had taught him almost everything he knew, and he had come home from school early to find his lunch and a note in case she were still away.

He took the opportunity to explore.

He’d always been a curious child, and his nosiness was simply in his nature. His mother’s room was her private place and he respected that, but this time, the pull was too strong to ignore.

He found a small box of letters, gently bound by a red ribbon. Carefully pulling one out, he folded it open only to be met with the oddest arrays and dashes of lines he’d ever seen put together. Another language, he quickly realised. Chinese?

René folded the letter and slipped it back into the bundle. He had a library to go to, and many books to borrow.

~

Time passes and suddenly, it’s been two years since he’d found his maman’s letters. Two years since he’d first seen the unfamiliar script of strange symbols, all strung together in what seemed to be lines and lines of indecipherable text.

René ignored the dried tear stains on the parchment with a quiet pang in his heart and did his best to interpret the symbols he had come to learn as ‘kanji’ with scrutinising eyes.

It’s been a year and a half since he had taught himself Japanese.

At first, it had been difficult. He struggled with the writing, the words feeling alien in his mouth whenever he’d tried to speak. He and his mother were not particularly wealthy, but they had more than enough that he had been able to sneak off one day and buy books to help him learn better, to understand clearer. Day by day and his writing became cleaner, his words becoming smoother. He listens to recordings from language CDs obsessively, mouthing along to the robotic-sounding woman. There were moments of frustration due to not having a proper tutor, but he was determined.

If he could find out what was written in those letters, if he could learn Japanese…

The blond’s eyes narrowed, mouth thinned.

If he could do something and get to the bottom of this…

…maybe then, his mother could finally have peace. Maybe then, his mother could finally stop crying.

“Suoh Yuzuru,” René murmurs, and his eyes darken.

**Author's Note:**

> title translates to "his wings of salt water."
> 
> *hides face in hands* why. why am i posting this now of all times. this fic is legit 3 years old and barely has any proofreading bloody hell.
> 
> ...well, ok, so there was a severe lack in tamangst and i needed a reason for this boy to hurt oops. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> i'm going to warn you now that it'll take me ages to get new chapters out, but i'll do my best. :')
> 
> (i take french classes so as far as i know, it's accurate? but if you're fluent and there's a better way of phrasing things, i'm open to suggestions/corrections.)


End file.
